My Genealogy Hound

HENRY C. KINGSBURY, a successful lawyer of Westfield who has been in active practice in the courts of the county for nearly thirty-three years, was born at Homer, Cortland county, New York, November 6, 1830, and is a son of William and Hilpah (Winchell) Kingsbury. His grandfathers, William Kingsbury and Rensalear Winchell, were natives of Connecticut. His father, William Kingsbury, was born in “the land of steady habits” during the latter part of the eighteenth century, served as a soldier in the war of 1812, and removed from his native State to Cortland county, New York, in the year 1817.

Henry C. Kingsbury grew to manhood at Homer where he attended the public schools for several years. He then entered Hamilton college from which he was graduated in 1849. Immediately after graduation he commenced the study of law with William Northup of Homer, read two years and was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of New York in 1851, at twenty-one years of age. Two years later he removed to Sherman where he practiced his profession successfully until 1859, when he came to Westfield and soon built up a good practice in the courts of Chautauqua county, which he has gradually increased from year to year. He is a democrat in politics. Though for that reason debarred from political office, his fellow-citizens have honored him — with many non-partisan positions, and for twenty years he has been president of the Board of Education. He owns nearly four hundred acres of good farming and grazing land, a part of which is well adapted to grapes and small fruits.

On September 3, 1855, he united in marriage with Mary A. La Due, daughter of Joshua La Due, a native of Auburn, New York, who held several important offices in the town of Sherman, Westfield and Portland, and died in 1865, aged seventy-one years. To Mr. and Mrs. Kingsbury have been born five children, three sons and two daughters: Carlton, who read law, was admitted to the bar and is practicing with his father; Edward P., a lawyer of Ogdensburg, New York; Clara K., wife of James L. Weeks, an attorney-at-law of Jamestown; Julia H., and Henry C., Jr.